


It Takes a Village (and then some)

by lildouglas



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Cute Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, Kid Peter Parker, Spider bros, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-23 15:46:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11992884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lildouglas/pseuds/lildouglas
Summary: On the nights where Peter Parker stumbled into his bedroom, beaten up and bloodied to the point May could barely recognize him, May was patient enough to hold herself from asking the rapid fire questions that raced in her mind. Sometimes, on the really bad nights (these were when a great tragedy took place or for those nights where Peter really messed up), he wouldn't speak a single word. No matter the night, May would wait up for him all by herself in her living room. And then there was the night where Peter crashed in through his window with a child curled up in his arms.





	It Takes a Village (and then some)

May was exhausted by the time dinner was done. She slumped down on the couch, releasing a long sigh. She rubbed at her face, the one with the eye bags from long nights of work. She was so tired, but she knew Peter must have it so much worse.

Her body aches with every breath she takes. She's getting old. Taking care of Peter is only getting harder and harder as every day passes. She works two jobs now, and it's still not enough to support the two of them.

She kicks her feet up on the footstool. Her heart is racing in her chest. She stares longingly out the window.

Somewhere out through there is her little boy, her precious Peter, getting pinned down by some criminal. The image sends a shiver down her spine, but she shakes it away.

Just a few nights ago Peter came home looking the worst she's ever seen him. His healing factor effaced the black eye, but Peter had so much blood on his face that she couldn't tell it was him. Everytime she closes her eyes, she sees the abused Peter.

Now he's out there again only to get hurt more. Her chest tightens at the thought.

Then, finally, there's the knocking at the window. Peter’s slipping in now — she can hear the footsteps. She felt relief at first, but that was until she heard the crash.

She prepared herself for the worst, which she knew well what the worst could be. Whatever it was, she decided she would be prepared for it for Peter’s sake. She could take it.

Well. That's what she thought anyways. Somehow, of all the things May had thought of — her mommybrain thinking up all the worst case scenario — this one had never crossed her mind.

Because, honestly, what the hell?

Her nephew is standing in the doorway of his bedroom, door swung wide open. His mask is slipped off and on the floor. There's a cut on his cheek, but it's not bleeding. His hair is mushed on top of his head. Ash covers his forehead and his arms.

But it's not Peter that strikes her the most. It's what Peter’s holding.

“Aunt May,” Peter began in a shrill voice, but she cut him off.

“Peter,” she began, pinching her nose. “What?”

Peter Parker held in his arms, curled up against his chest, a small kid.

Curled up against his chest was a child. A child that clung to him. Well, “stuck” would be more accurate as Peter wasn't holding him.

May doesn't know what to think. “I don't even know how to start with this one, Aunt May.”

She's at a loss. “Is it… yours?” She held up her hand, counting her fingers. “How old is he? How, when, but, wait, you're only sixteen—”

“No! Aunt May, no, don't even go there,” he denied, a Scarlet red blush dusting his face. “He's like me, but he's not mine. Not like that.”

Peter only got his powers last year. If he were to have a child, it would've only been a newborn. The child on his chest had to be at least five.

“I couldn't just leave him,” Peter explained. “He was a creation of Doctor Octavious’s.”

May raised an eyebrow. “And you brought him into our home?” She held her arm out. Peter plucked the child off of him, and he stirred in his sleep. May cradled him. “I'm assuming he's not a danger then.”

“Oh, he is,” Peter said, cautious. May didn't shift her grip. Even if it was a danger.

May waltzed into the dining room. She pulled out a chair and dropped the little boy down in it gently. “Come on, then, dinner’s ready.” She set the plates down on the table. “Hurry up now. Before it gets cold.”

  
So maybe that wasn't the best idea. Peter didn't really have much choice. Really, was he going to just leave him there? Yeah, the little kid did try to kill him, but that's minor details.

Speak of the devil, his cold hands are pressing against Peter’s forehead. Peter’s eyes flutter open. “What the…?”

The tiny hand slaps against his face. It hits hard with intent to hurt. “Loud,” he says simply, and he hits him again.

Peter pushes the child to his side. “Dude, stop trying to kill me.” He presses snooze on his alarm clock. “Give me, like, seven more minutes, then you can try again.”

He doesn't want to. A pillow is pressed against his face. “Hungry,” the child says.

“For what? Death?” He sits up in his bed. The monster is sitting on his knees. “Destruction?” Peter reaches over and picks up his phone, checking his messages.

“Yes,” he replied, hitting him again. Peter catches his fist this time.

“Come on,” Peter grumbled, slipping out of bed. He grabbed a pair of jeans and a white shirt and made his way into the kitchen. May had already long left for work. The house was empty except for him and the kid.

He was incredibly shy. When he had woken up last night, he wouldn’t leave Peter’s side. He’s terrified of Aunt May. He’s not scared of Peter, though. That much is obvious from the amount of times he has tried to smother him.

Peter’s not completely stupid, though. He wouldn’t bring a killer into his home for no good reason. He was raised by Octavious. He’s not a bad kid. He was just brought up by a lunatic.

He isn’t very talkative. Peter doesn’t know if it’s from his shy personality or if he doesn’t know how to speak well. “Pet,” he mumbled, banging his fist on the table. “Pet. Pet.”

He held up his finger. “Say it with me: Pe-ter,” he pronounced. The child tilted his head.

“Petrah,” he mimicked with a grin on his face. “Spider.”

“Well,” he sighed. “You’re not wrong.”

Peter watched him hesitantly. He pressed his face against the glass of chocolate milk Peter had poured for him. He shoved his mouth against the top and tried to lick the contents.

“Hey, hey,” Peter said, picking up his own drink. He held it up to his lips and sipped. The clone squinted his eyes.

After a few moments, he adjusted his grip and copied what Peter was doing. “Petar! Petar! See?”

Peter smiled. “Good job,” he said. He didn’t want to think of what he drank out of while living in that lab.

When he called his name, Peter became suddenly aware of what to call him. It wasn’t that he didn’t have a name; he just didn’t want to call him by it. Octavious named him “Scarlet.”

“Ben,” Peter said. The child face planted into his plate. “Ben!” He raised his head quickly, confused. “Do you like that? ‘Ben’?”

“Who?”

Peter got up from the table. He plucked a picture frame off of the bookshelf. He handed it to the child. “That was my Uncle Ben,” Peter explained. The child rubbed his finger over the photograph. He points at the young Peter holding up a ribbon. “That’s me. I won second place at the science fair. Stupid volcano…”

He points at May. “Mother?” He questioned.

“No, that’s my Aunt. That’s May.” The child shivered at the name.

“She’s nice. She and Ben took me in,” he explained.

He perked up. “Like me?”

“Yup,” he chirped, picking him out of his chair. “Just like you. Except I was the cute one. Don’t you forget it.”

“Ben,” he says. “Where’s Ben?”

Peter carries him into the bathroom. He sets him in front of the counter. “Uncle Ben passed away.”

He blinked slowly. “Did the bad people get him?” He said every word as its own sentence.

“Yeah, they did.” He picks up his toothbrush and slides on some toothbrush. He sticks it in his mouth, then rummages through the drawer for an extra toothbrush. He hands it to him with a smaller amount of toothpaste. “Do what I do. Trust me; your breath reeks.”

They brushed their teeth in silence. They spit out the tooth paste. Peter held a towel to his face. “Was he good?”

“The best.” Peter brushed some of his hair out of his face. He really needed a cut.

The clone hopped off of the stool. “Am I good?”

Peter crouched down to his level. “Yeah, you’re good,” he said, making a fist with his hand. He held it out to him. He winced in return.

Peter grabbed the small hand and guided it into a fist. They engaged in a fist bump. Peter proceeded with explosion noises. He giggled.

“You’re the bomb,” Peter said. “Come on, Ben.”

He stepped out the door. He held his hand out for him to follow. “You coming, Ben?”

Ben pointed a finger at himself. “I think it suits you: Ben Reilly. But, seriously, we have to go, Ben.”

The rest of the morning was a race. While Ben peacefully sat at the table, Peter was racing around. His backpack laid by his dangling feet. Peter handed him an old tee shirt. “Put this on.”

Offended, Ben looks down at his suit. “As great as it looks, you can’t go out in that. I changed out of my spider suit.”

“Why?” He scrunched up his nose.

“Because it smells bad, like you,” he jokes, poking him. “You really need to change.”

He squinted. “Are you judging my outfit?”

Ben sticks out his tongue. “Lame,” he noted. He points to the Spider-Man suit in the laundry room. “You change.”

Peter races over and picks up his suit. “Smell,” he says, holding it out under his nose. Ben takes an experimental sniff, then gags. “That’s what I thought.” He throws the suit back into the laundry room. “If you let me put it in the wash, we can go on patrol together tonight.”

His eyes light up at that. “Okay,” he says, and he starts to slip off his suit. Peter gives him a hand as he gets stuck in his own suit.

Peter slipped on his backpack and slipped his lanyard over his head. Ben grabbed on to his hand. They walked out towards the schoolbus.

“Who’s the kid?” the bus driver asked, eyebrows raised. “These high schoolers keep getting shorter and shorter.”

“No, sir, he’s my cousin visiting from Ohio. He missed his bus already.” The bus driver doesn’t seem to care anymore than that. They board the bus.

Peter slips into an isolated seat and lets Ben climb on over him.

Flash peeks over the top of the seat. “Parker’s bringing a kid to school. Stuck babysitting? That’s gay!”

Peter rolled his eyes. Ben glared. He sat up in his seat and bunked Flash in the head with his head. He stuck out his tongue, turned around, and sat back on top of Peter.

“Dude!” Flash started to ramble, but Peter was already moving. He grabbed Ben and tugged him away.

“Thanks, but we’re going to walk the rest of the way!” The bus driver didn’t say a word of protest as he raced by the people boarding his bus.

Peter and Ben ran, leaving a fuming Flash Thompson on the bus. “Ben, what were you thinking?” Once safe, Peter pulled Ben in front of him to get a good look at his face. A bruise had already started to form across his forehead.

“Oh,” he mumbled. “I’m sorry.” He looked down at his clothes. “I’m not in uniform.”

“Ben, that’s only part of the problem,” Peter explained. They started to walk. “Flash isn’t a supervillain. He’s just a jerk.”

Ben crossed his arms. Peter scooped him up and threw him over his shoulder. He took off in a sprint.

They arrived at the school early. Peter slid into the library. “Okay, here’s the plan: you’re gonna stay here for a few hours until I get done with school. Can you do that for me?”

He slipped a large stack of comics out of his bag. “Here, read these while I’m gone.”

Ben stared at the paper. “Ben?”

Oh, crap. He can’t read.

“Who is that?”

“He’s like us,” Peter explained. “That’s Iron Man. He’s a hero, too.”

Ben fluttered his eyes. “Iron Man,” he repeats, testing the name out. He flips through the pages. “Hero.”

“Yeah,” Peter says. “Okay, Ben, I’ll be back at lunch. After that, I can see if I can get off early.”

It wasn’t hard. All his core classes are at the start of the day.

Sure, he misses a bunch of days in class because of a certain spider-themed super hero, but he still does all his work. His teachers still like him.

So when Peter’s second block ends, he makes a beeline for the library. He burst open the doors, only to be hushed viscously by the librarians. He whispered an apology before racing over to Ben’s table.

He was sprawled out on top of the table. Ben’s face was pressed into a comic. He was drooling.

Peter smiled. “Ben?” he whispered, shaking him lightly. His face contorted into a grimace. “Ben, it’s me.” Ben shot up in a flurry, clutching on to Peter. His breath was ragged. “You're okay, Ben.”

He shivered. “We can go on patrol now, if you're still up for it,” Peter grinned, helping Ben pack up the comics. Ben hopped down off the table.

So Peter got enough crap being so young, especially from Tony and May, but he ignored it. He was a teenager, yeah, but he had the power to do things most other teenagers couldn't. He put that to good use.

Ben was much younger than he was. However, Ben was created to fight. He was made to kill Peter.

They're trying to reverse that.

Peter and Ben are sat up on the top of a building. Ben is tugging at his mask. “Don't let anyone see you,” Peter nags, pulling his lunchbox out of his bag. He pulls out a sandwich and holds it out to Ben. Ben is hesitant, but eventually he snatches it from Peter’s hand. He scarves it down. Peter kicks his feet. “There's not much crime today.”

Ben peers over the edge. Peter bites out of his apple.

“Ben, how old are you?”

Ben looks confused. He holds up his hand. He starts to count. He stops. “I'm not sure,” Ben mumbled. “The others… not so little.”

Peter waited for him to continue. Ben was slow because he was young and scared. “Wasn't… supposed to be little.”

Ben’s eyes widen. “Is that bad?”

Peter bit his lip. “It just means I need to keep an eye on you. Children your age don't go out and fight crime. But, then again, neither do teenagers my age.”

Ben nods. He looks over the edge again. “Don't want to fight,” he confessed, wincing from a strong breeze. “Wanna find.”

Ben waddled over and dropped down next to Peter. He accepted an Oreo held out to him. He chomped into it, straight out of Peter’s hand.

“I lost,” Ben admitted again. “Bones. He— He was mean, but he… I knew him.”

“Who?” Peter was cautious. The only people Ben would've known…

“Big,” Ben said, making a gesture with his hands. “There was Ghost.”

Ben fiddled with his hands. “I wonder… if Ghost is still Ghost… I don't know if he's free.” He cocked his head. “I'm not Scarlet.”

He grabbed ahold of Peter suddenly. “I don't know who he was,” he cried. “Who was Scarlet? Who is Ben?”

Peter hugged him back. Ben cried into his chest. “You can be whoever you want to be,” Peter promised, rubbing his head. “It's okay now. You're free now.” Ben pulled back. “We can find them. I told you that already, didn't I? We’re in this together.”

He held out his fist. Ben punched him back.

Peter stood up suddenly, brushing off the dirt. He looked over the city. “If we’re going to find them, we’re going to want to start with Octavious.” He turned around, but Ben was gone. His empty wrapper of oreos was the only thing left. “Ben!”

But it was too late. Ben was gone.

 

You can call it stalking, if you want, because it's surprisingly accurate. Tony Stark wouldn't call it stalking; he'd say he was just “checking in” even though it was obviously not.

He had Happy watch over him, even if Peter had turned down the Avengers. When the others caught him spying on Spider-Man, they would always tease him about it. Since Peter turned him down, he'd be lying if he said he wasn't a little sad. Kind of like a teenager getting rejected because the other is too busy for a relationship. Except it's way more complicated than that. This is the heroics.

And Peter didn't stop after that. He's still out there, fighting the fight, all by himself. It really bothers Tony. He can handle himself — Peter has proved himself that much. He's moved on to bigger fish, however, and Peter’s enemies are getting stronger and stronger.

Peter can handle it. He's strong enough.

Yet, he's still only sixteen. He's balancing a job, school, Spider-Man, and his family. It has to be too much for him.

So it's okay if he “stalks” him a little bit. The kid is so reckless that it's justified. It's not weird. It's really not.

“Creeping up on him again?”

Tony chokes on his coffee. He spins in his chair to find Sam in the doorway. “No,” Tony said, clicking away from the video. “Checking the news.”

“The news?” Sam raised an eyebrow. “And the news is reporting… cat videos?”

Tony turned around to face the YouTube video pulled up. “It would seem so.”

Sam crossed his arms over his chest. “Tony, can't you just talk to the kid?”

Tony released a heavy sigh. He flipped back to the live feed of Peter, who had been flipping through the buildings. Now, his camera was full of a tiny child pressed into the screen.

“Is he shrinking?” Sam asked, squinting. “He's so much shorter than I remember.” He leaned in closer. “I knew he was young, but look at that baby face!”

The unmasked face that looked back at him was not Peter. Sam didn't know Peter; he barely even knew Spider-Man. Tony knew him, though. Tony knew Peter.

Peter was smart, but Peter never found the drones following him around.

Now, there's this spider themed toddler, somehow younger than Peter, dangling on top of the drone.

“Tony, I mean, seriously,” Sam started, but Tony was already gone. As well as one of his suits.

 


End file.
